On Monday Mr. Balfour moved for leave to have morning
sittings at 2 o'clock on Tuesdays, and to take these morning sittings for the Government. He made his statement ex- tremely short, pointing out that in 1895 all the Tuesdays were taken except two, and Friday mornings were also taken from March 1st until Easter and from April 20th till the end of the Session. However there was, of course, the usual protest on behalf of private Members, Mr. T. G. Bowles being as usual one of the protagonists in the fight, and wasting the time of the House with a would-be jocular comparison between Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and his Egyptian policy and Pharaoh's Jewish Grand Vizier, Joseph the son of Jacob,. whom he credited with the feat of having deprived the Egyptians of " all their money, of all their cattle, and of all their lands, and, finally, of their own liberty," a perverse reading of Genesis which we do not think any scholar would confirm. This rather ponderous joke was hardly very successful, but the House laughed of course, and did not at all mind the wasting of the time which some of them were so anxious not to grant to the Government. Ultimately the motion was carried, at about half-past 6, by 246 to 124 (majority, 122), and Mr. Gerald Balfour rose to introduce his Irish Land Bill.
Previous page
